Politics Fail to Yank ‘Alternative Rabin’ Memorial Singer

'Rabin memorial politics': Shulamit Livnat, mother of a Likud minister, survives attempt to yank her off stage for memorial service for Begin.

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

First Publish: 10/26/2009, 9:09 AM / Last Update: 10/26/2009, 9:27 AM

israel news photo: ORT

Shulamit Livnat, mother of Likud Minister of Culture and Sport Limor Livnat, has survived an attempt by a Labor party activist and attorney to cancel her performance in memory of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin. The objector claimed Livnat should not perform on the grounds that she once took part in an “alternative memorial” ceremony for former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin.

Livnat was a member of an Underground movement that fought for Israel under the British Mandate.

She sang Saturday night in a concert at the city of Modi’in, located between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, despite attempts by Labor party activist Aran Hermoni to stop the show. He advised the city’s mayor that two years ago, during the annual memorial ceremonies for Rabin, that Livnat had taken part in an “alternative memorial” organized by “extreme right-wingers.”

He alleged that the event included “incitement, similar to what preceded the murder of Rabin.”

The show went on without any disturbances, and Hermoni was not present, the singer told Arutz Sheva. She revealed, “He claimed that the event was a denial that Rabin was murdered. He called me a right-wing extremist, so I called him a left-wing extremist. It turns out that he has met with Hamas officials and has participated in events of left-wingers more extreme than Labor and Meretz,” two of Israel’s best-known parties that are against Judea and Samaria being a part of the Land of Israel.